Subject choices of completers of upper secondary general school
education in 2010

According to Statistics Finland, nearly all
completers of the full upper secondary general school syllabus in
2010 had studied English, and Finnish or Swedish during their
attendance of upper secondary general school. German had been
studied by 26 per cent, French by 17 per cent, Spanish by 14 per
cent and Russian by seven per cent of the completers of upper
secondary general school education. The proportions of those having
studied other, more unusual foreign languages remained at four per
cent or below. They also vary considerably between genders in
several languages.

Language choices of completers of full upper
secondary general school syllabus 2010

Studied language

Compulsory A-languages

Compulsory language B1

Elective language B2, at least six
courses

Elective language B3, at least six
courses

Elective language, fewer than six
courses

Total

Share of completers of full upper secondary
general school syllabus, %

English

30 497

29

12

4

0

30 542

99.1

Swedish

2 524

25 475

3

5

48

28 055

91.0

Finnish

2 045

50

16

21

1

2 133

6.9

French

634

35

915

1 334

2 445

5 363

17.4

German

1 804

7

1 485

1 608

3 032

7 936

25.7

Russian

171

5

46

613

1 191

2 026

6.6

Sami

3

-

4

3

15

25

0.1

Latin

0

-

23

86

440

549

1.8

Spanish

11

-

56

1 510

2 671

4 248

13.8

Italian

0

-

15

246

826

1 087

3.5

Other

0

-

1

18

310

329

1.1

The completers of upper secondary general school studies had
mainly taken English, Swedish or Finnish as a compulsory language
subject. German, French, Spanish, Russian and other foreign
languages had been mainly studied as an elective language. A total
of 30,829 students completed the full upper secondary general
school syllabus in spring 2010. 12,948 of the completers were men
and 17,881 were women.

In spring 2010, 43 per cent of all completers of the full upper
secondary general school syllabus - 36 per cent of female students
and 53 per cent of male students - had taken the long syllabus in
mathematics.